{"id":44679,"date":"2020-11-16T11:15:11","date_gmt":"2020-11-16T10:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.steinmuehle.de\/blog\/2020\/11\/16\/from-refugee-to-high-school-graduate-steinmuehle-makes-history\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T17:34:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T15:34:49","slug":"from-refugee-to-high-school-graduate-steinmuehle-makes-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/blog\/2020\/11\/16\/from-refugee-to-high-school-graduate-steinmuehle-makes-history\/","title":{"rendered":"From Refugee to High School Graduate: Steinm\u00fchle Makes History"},"content":{"rendered":"

One could begin this story with \u201cOnce upon a time\u2026.\u201d But this is no fairy tale. When Hussam, Abdallah, and Habib arrived at the Steinm\u00fchle in the fall of 2015, they had nothing in their pockets, just one goal in mind: to earn their high school diplomas. Today, five years later, they\u2019ve all achieved their goal. And that\u2019s not just a voice prompt from a GPS\u2014it\u2019s the result of hard work. <\/span><\/p>\n

None of the three spoke German; they had brought nothing but their ambition. They were part of the group of refugees who, as part of an external youth welfare program, moved into the rented Bremerhaus at Steinm\u00fchle and were also educated on the premises. <\/span><\/p>\n

They were the ones to watch: Hussam, a Palestinian born in Syria; Abdallah, a Syrian; and Habib, an Afghan originally from Iran. This was true not only\u2014but especially\u2014for math class. All three chose the math track in 11th grade. Math is an international subject; other classes, taught on a broader German-language basis, pose the greater challenge. But was math the only challenge? <\/span><\/p>\n


\n“We knew we had to”<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

And how they crammed German anyway! They got their start in the intensive German class. \u201cWe knew we had to,\u201d the three recall, thinking back on learning German\u2014a language that was completely foreign to them\u2014but which they simply couldn\u2019t avoid. \u201cIt really helped that we spent 24 hours on campus,\u201d they recall. \u201cOur classmates were a huge support to us.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

And yet: It was very, very hard. They admit to the lean times, the homesickness, and everything else that sets in when you worry that your loved ones back home are in danger. But that was precisely what drove them to give it their all and seize these opportunities to shape their lives the way they\u2019d always dreamed. For the sake of those back home, too. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was quite an experience\u2014for us teachers as well,\u201d says Bj\u00f6rn Gemmer. The principal of Steinm\u00fchlen School and former homeroom teacher of the three young men also recalls the challenges they faced. \u201cOverall, it was a diverse group, all of whom shared the goal of earning a diploma. There was no family to fall back on.\u201d Religious considerations also came into play, such as Ramadan, for example. \u201cBut we couldn\u2019t accommodate that from an organizational standpoint at the school.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Today, the pride Steinm\u00fchle feels for having paved the way clearly outweighs everything else. Everyone seems relaxed, happy, and full of hope for the future. Habib and Hussam plan to study business informatics, while Abdallah wants to become a doctor\u2014specifically, an \u201corthopedist.\u201d He graduated from high school with a 1.1 GPA. \u201cMy dream of going to college came true here.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\" \"\" \"\" \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One could begin this story with \u201cOnce upon a time\u2026.\u201d But this is no fairy tale. When Hussam, Abdallah, and Habib arrived at the Steinm\u00fchle in the fall of 2015, they had nothing in their pockets, just one goal in mind: to earn their high school diplomas. Today, five years later, they\u2019ve all achieved their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":44680,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[96,85,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ecology-and-sustainability","category-news","category-politics-business-responsibility"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49257,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44679\/revisions\/49257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}